Talk:Skills/@comment-24.138.211.132-20170322221400
curiously enough, after hundreds of hours of elminage and elminage and elminage; and of course, ibag's tower as well... you know what the single handiest ex-skill / random "thing" i learned while going thru Ibag's? the ex-skill "Chi Wave" is absolutely, inarguably the absolute best offensive pick for an ability. the damage it deals is calculated straight from the character's equipped weapons, which means: my level 200-ish Werebeast Cleric would deal 600-900 damage using chi wave inside ibag's tower-- but, my devilish lord was dealing sometimes almost close to 1700 points of damage, give or take. the chi wave itself is L-ranged, which makes it fantastic for giving to back-row party members or to "casters" and such, and there are plenty of very high-statistic Staffs, Bows, Whips and other crap to equip these back-row "caster" types with (and of course shit like aura punch, or philosopher's stone), in order to make sure the chi wave deals hundreds of points of damage. lastly, the kicker is that the chi wave is non-attributable damage AND it cannot be swallow returned by enemies! That means it's a much better pick than taking Swallow Killer (since that one is not L-ranged, and its damage comes from your char's standard melee attack, which can be great... or crap). The chi wave is guaranteed, solid damage that can't be resisted by spell resistance of special move resistances and it can't be swallow returned. Since it's a special ability it bypasses armor class as well. Not sure if it bypasses enemy AC COMPLETELY, but i'll use this example: versus Belial my dev lord's normal attacks were not great without using spells, right, HOWEVER one use of his Chi Wave was 300-450 damage, GUARANTEED, every time, without fail... against enemies like belial, and others, having that option/guarantee is amazing. if anything i think chi wave is fucking overpowered. personally i would vote to nerf it, or perhaps not have it be L-ranged at least, because as it is now it is the #1 best offensive skill. (the other #1 skill is of course, BRACE. that is simply on another level). Other ex-skills I vote to be surprisingly very, very helpful, but simply not as good as going Brace/Chi-Wave are: - Shout: i had this on my faiery bishop and that fucker was inflicting Fright on enemies by mid-game all the way to final floors of Ibag's tower. Frightened enemies will have a 50% chance to "not take an action" during their turn. This shit is quite handy! (Note: i tried using "CURSE", which does same but versus 1 single enemy, and i found it has the same overall success rate as SHOUT, but since it is not group-affecting... it is immediately then relegated to useless). - LEVEL DRAIN. seriously. drain an enemy of up to -3 levels and watch ALLLL THEIR STATS/ATTRIBUTES fall down the drain. also makes it super easy ot steal items from them as well. Don't know if it lowers the summon resistance but i doubt it (think summ resist is fixed on char-gen). All shit that is tied to levels such as: special resistance UP, phys atk power UP and magical power UP, as well as AC decline, combative instict, ETC, ETC... all that gets lowered by 3 levels. Especially useful to lower the enemy's chance to behead you. Those i think are the best, most useful ex-skills in Gothic. I would give an honorary shout-out to the one where you Absorb a Spell casted on you (and you then gain +1 rank 1 MP); however the +1 MP is WHATEVER the real important thing is: it is a skill which has a random chance to activate whenever you are targeted with a spell by the enemy; i.e. this means you will always have, throughout the entire game, a dumb 50% chance to simply "absorb" an enemy spell which could be anything from an enterook mista to a petrification spell, etc. Or an instant death spell. (BTW, i found that skill works best coupled w/ an Alchemist char, as they use their rank 1 Alchemist Spells, i.e. the breath spell Pomadoom, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE GAME. This menas they will _always_ enjoy a "random" recharge of their rank 1 spells, leaving aside for the moment the fact that he/she now enjoys a "dumb" 50% enemy spell avoidance, heh).